I just spent a good portion of my Saturday starting or finishing some custom paint jobs on some Classics Transformers into Diaclone colors... And it hit me, HOW does these 3rd party and KO's of retired toy molds hurt Hasbro/Takara?

3rd party toys, like the new Power Master Prime that just came out, now THAT is impressive, however you still NEED the ORIGINAL TF Classics Prime from hasbro/takara in order for it to work. And the toy has run it's course, it's been released and is no longer being produced by hasbro, so the only way for us to get this is through the secondary market, which has NO bearing on the parent companies. Granted it might make them look bad, I'd rather believe that it raises the bar, hopefully shows them the way to what the true old school fan's want to see.

Did this help? Apparently not because (Except for the mini MP prime and Sideswipe) there is no more Classics/Generations/Universe line. SO they did not get the message.

So we also have KO's of other molds that do use the orginal toys from hasbro/takara. Again, anything that comes out now is after the original line has run it's course, and the parent company has stopped using the molds, BUT there is still a desire from the old school fans to have more variations of say the seekers, prime trucks and sideswipe molds that have not been produced or will not be produced in the future (cept maybe for Botcon). In my eyes, these enhance the original collecton of officially bought Takara/Hasbro products and keep the theme going in my home.

Finally, original 3rd party toys that are based on G1 characters. This is a mixed bag of cats. On one hand, it's fan based entities building what is in their eyes a great update to the original chracters, which hasbro/takara has not provided to the fans. This does not directly take money away from the parent company because they have not produced anything exactly the same. They could be missing out due to likeness of trade marked caracters and mass production issues. I would say again, this would really be a call to the parent companies to produce what the true, old school fans want.

I spent $20 on materials today for paints and such to custom paint 5 or 6 classics toys (junkers) that I paid for either from the store or on the secondary market. I believe at the core, these 3rd party creators are doing the same, and with costs to pacaging and manufacturing, they probably do not make a lot of money.